


Give Me Your Strength

by minkhollow



Series: protag!Kanji [2]
Category: Persona 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, protag!swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 08:46:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2645612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minkhollow/pseuds/minkhollow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If they're going to rescue Yukiko, they need to find her.  In order to find her, they need more information.  And no one knows Yukiko like her best friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give Me Your Strength

**Author's Note:**

> Some more protag!Kanji shenanigans, this time: how Chie ended up as part of the group without a natural tie to it. (If I continue past this, I'm probably going to skip boss battles unless they're substantially different to canon, but this one was important.)
> 
> Still not Atlus.

Teddie can’t find her.

They know Amagi-san’s in the TV – she has to be, after that whole ‘princess’ display, and Teddie’s just as sure there’s someone else in his world as he is unsure of her exact location. Poor guy seemed really upset that he couldn’t just sniff her out and be done with it. He needs more information about her, he says.

Apparently, the fact that Kanji used to play with her when they were little isn’t good enough, but that actually kind of makes sense. Kanji’s changed since then; Amagi-san probably has too.

They’re trying to figure out what to do the next day over lunch – just because Kanji and Naoki got lucky enough to share a homeroom doesn’t mean they feel like blabbing about all this stuff in front of the rest of their class – when the access door to the roof slams, and Satonaka comes stalking up to them. She looks somewhere between panicked and pissed off; under the circumstances, Naoki can’t really blame her.

“You two know something, don’t you?” she says.

Naoki shrugs. “Well, I can’t speak for Kanji, but I know a lot of things. Which one did you have in mind?”

“Hey,” Kanji grumbles, but there’s not a whole lot of venom in it. Naoki shoots him a half-apologetic glance anyway; he knows Kanji’s not as dumb as he thinks he is (he did manage to test into high school, after all), but Satonaka’s in too much of a state to get into that right now.

“About Yukiko. You two were leaving the inn when I headed up there to see if she was okay.”

Even without looking at him, Naoki can practically feel Kanji stiffening at the accusation. “We didn’t do anything to her—”

“Hey, I – I didn’t say you did!” Satonaka holds her hands up like she’s trying to stave off a fight. “You didn’t have the time, or anywhere to put her. But there’s only so many reasons you guys would go poking around out there, it’s not really a popular hangout, and – is… is this a Midnight Channel thing?”

As soon as he realized the blurry figure on TV might be Amagi-san, Naoki figured they’d end up having this conversation sooner or later. Satonaka was one of the first people at school to latch onto the Midnight Channel rumor, as far as he knows, and naturally she’d react – well, strongly to her best friend being in danger. Of anyone who might try to horn in on this mess, he’d almost rather it was her; she can at least take care of herself in a fight, if her self-taught kung fu techniques hold up at all.

Whether she’s prepared for Shadows is another thing entirely, but he’s not sure anyone’s prepared for that until it happens to them.

Kanji sighs, and goes quiet for so long that Naoki’s worried he’s just going to shut the whole conversation down and go back inside. He had reservations about this, when they first talked about it, and after what happened to him Naoki can’t blame him. But he’s already explained why he thinks this is a good idea; the decision’s in Kanji’s hands now.

“Actually, you might be able to help us out,” he finally says. “But, uh, the whole story’s kinda weird, and not really one I wanna get into at school. Come to Aiya after, we’ll fuel up and go from there.”

Satonaka looks surprised; whether it’s that she was right or that Kanji isn’t beating her to a pulp for asking, Naoki couldn’t say. “Okay. But I’m absolutely helping you find Yukiko.”

***

Halfway through their beef bowls and the story at Aiya, it’s apparent Satonaka won’t believe them until she sees it, so as soon as they’ve paid for their food, they head to Junes, where Kanji practically yanks her into the TV behind him. Naoki just shakes his head and follows (apparently it works when he’s alone now), bracing himself for the landing. As soon as he’s on his feet, he pulls the glasses Teddie gave him yesterday out of his pocket and puts them on; the difference it makes visibility-wise is nothing short of miraculous.

“Wow,” Satonaka says in a small voice. “This is… we’re actually… wow. –What the hell is that?”

“Sensei! Naoki! Who’s your friend?” Teddie comes bopping up without a care in the world; Naoki’s beginning to suspect he has the world’s worst timing. “Did she come along to help?”

Kanji nods. “If anyone can tell you more about Amagi-senpai, it’s Satonaka.”

Teddie turns to Satonaka expectantly, and to her credit, she only hesitates for a second (it looks like she’s mouthing “‘Sensei’?”) before she starts talking. It’s enlightening; Naoki had been vaguely aware Amagi-san was under a lot of pressure related to the inn, but not just how much she’s been doing lately. After a few minutes, Teddie starts sniffing the air again, perking up in short order.

“I think I found her! Let’s go!”

He takes off into the fog – and Satonaka’s hot on his heels. Kanji and Naoki barely have time to grab the makeshift weapons they’d set aside before they have to follow or lose sight of Teddie for good; on the way, Kanji huffs out a sigh, pushing his sunglasses (of course he’d get sunglasses) up his nose.

“Dammit, we told her part of helping was stayin’ with us, not goin’ off half-cocked,” he says. “You still sure this was a good idea?”

“She’s worried about her friend, of course she was unlikely to listen. Besides, it could be worse. Hanamura probably would’ve started waving weapons around in public or something.”

Kanji snorts. “And wouldn’t the cops’ve just eaten that shit up. Got a point there, man.”

They finally catch up with Teddie outside an imposing Western-style castle, unmistakably the one that was the backdrop to the ‘Princess Yukiko’ business – but Satonaka’s nowhere in sight.

“Chie-chan ran straight in,” Teddie says, somehow managing to sound cheerful and worried all at once. “I told her to wait for you, but…”

Naoki sighs. “Well, here we go again.”

***

By the time they catch up to Satonaka, the castle’s spouting Amagi-san’s voice from somewhere. Naoki’s not sure how much of it reflects Amagi-san’s actual thoughts and how much of it is a trap; after all, he’s pretty sure Saki wasn’t so far gone as to actually think the world would be better off without her, so that was probably this stupid world trying to provoke him.

It works just as well on Satonaka, and her Shadow is – well, it’s a whole new set of revelations. Their friendship never looked that toxic to Naoki, but clearly they’re going to have a lot to talk about after this. If they both get out of here alive, he can’t help thinking for a moment – but of course they will. Kanji won’t let anything else happen.

 **“When the time comes, I’ll be the one left standing. But you won’t mind, right? I’m still you!”** The Shadow laughs a little, and of course Satonaka’s not happy to hear that, and then the chain reaction’s complete.

When the black cloud dissipates, Naoki eyes the Shadow’s new shape for a moment. “Kanji, was mine that… weird?”

Kanji shrugs. “It was pretty out there, but, uh, not like this.”

Naoki barely has a chance to laugh – whatever his _did_ look like, he can at least rest assured it wasn’t weirdly sexualized – before the Shadow busts out an ice spell and knocks him on his ass. When he recovers his footing, he’s glad they got a little practice in on the way up here; he’s not one of nature’s brawlers, and it was so apparent that he didn’t even mind Kanji sighing and saying to just follow his lead.

“Zappin’ it didn’t do much,” Kanji says. “Give yours a shot.”

Naoki nods, and grins when Fujin’s gust of wind knocks the Shadow on its ass (there’s a ‘divine wind’ joke in here somewhere, but he can’t quite bring himself to make it). They gang up on the thing, but it doesn’t go down; instead, it does a spell that keeps Naoki from knocking it down again, and just… stares at them. It’s unsettling.

“I’m thinking maybe I should duck,” he says. “Or brace myself or something.”

Kanji nods. “Ain’t a bad idea, if you’re that worried.”

It turns out to be a really good idea, actually, since the Shadow busts out the ice again; it doesn’t knock Naoki over this time, but it’s still damn unpleasant. Fortunately, whatever was keeping the wind spells from knocking it over is gone, and from there it’s a pretty short fight. The Shadow collapses in on itself, fading back into the mirror image of Satonaka; from behind them, the real Satonaka mutters something.

“Chie-chan?” Teddie says. “Are you okay?”

“What the… oh, jeez.” Satonaka sits up, holding her head, and is none too pleased when she spots the Shadow. “What, you out of clever comebacks?”

“No, it’s waitin’ for you to take the next step,” Kanji says. “Like it or not, that thing’s a part of you – we’ve all got shit like that.”

“The same thing happened to me,” Naoki says. “Neither of us is going to hold it against you. But if you don’t do your part, we’re going to be stuck here forever.” Or until the fog rolls in and everything goes to hell, but he’s not going to spook her by saying that if he doesn’t have to.

Satonaka sighs, but she gets up and does her part, collapsing again almost as soon as her Shadow transmutes into a Persona (some kind of warrior, if Naoki doesn’t miss his guess; it suits her). She doesn’t take the suggestion that they go home very well at all, but frankly, Naoki’s wiped – there’s no way he can handle whatever Amagi-san’s Shadow is going to have waiting for them, assuming they could make it through all the smaller ones between here and there. Even Kanji looks beat, and he forces the point; between that and Teddie babbling about the fog again, Satonaka calms down enough to agree to leave.

“But don’t you dare come back without me,” she says. “I can help without causing trouble now, and I’m damn well going to.”

Once they’re out of the TV, she stumbles off home alone, mostly because she’s the only one who knows where her house is, and Kanji and Naoki head back together.

“You know I don’t actually think you’re a dumbass, right?” Naoki says, most of the way home; he probably doesn’t need to, but it’s been bugging him a little since lunch, so he figures he might as well say it. “I wouldn’t be following your lead on any of this if I did.”

Kanji snorts, but there’s a tiny smile on his face. “Yeah, yeah.”

***

Naoki puts in enough of an appearance at dinner to keep from worrying his parents, waving them off with an ‘I already ate’ when they point out he’s barely touched his food. He doesn’t even have the energy to be annoyed that this is the most consequence anyone’s assigned to his actions since Saki died.

Anyone other than Kanji, anyway.

He collapses in bed pretty much straight away after dinner, and doesn’t wake up until his alarm goes off the next morning; he swats it off and pulls up his email, more on a hunch than anything. It turns out to be a good hunch, since there’s something from Kanji (how the hell did he have the energy to write anything last night?) – he must have gotten Satonaka’s email before she left yesterday, since it’s addressed to her too.

_Hey, guys. Figured we could use some ground rules for this TV stuff._

_Rule 1: NO ONE GOES IN ALONE. This shit’s too dangerous to screw around with like that, and Teddie’s first to say he’s useless in a fight. Whole group or nothing. If we end up with more people we can figure out split-ups from there, but while there’s only three of us, no splitting up._

_Rule 2: No uniforms. No point in tearing up our good clothes doing this. Bring stuff you don’t mind getting torn up or bloodied or whatever and change after school, or just wear it if it’s a day off._

_Rule 3: No real weapons, by which I mostly mean blades and the like. It won’t do us any good to get arrested trying to get this done. Rule 3A: Leave things inside the TV as much as possible. If we need to replace or upgrade shit, we’ll figure out how to get it home from there, but the less chances Junes has to accuse us of shoplifting, the better._

_Rule 4: None of us is made of money, but the Shadows do drop some. At the end of the day, we split the pot (me walking around with a shitton of yen is going to be way too suspicious), and everyone gets their own equipment with that. You guys’re gonna know what you need a hell of a lot better than I would._

_Rule 5: If we’re not at Aiya or on the roof, we keep our mouths shut about this. If it’s raining we’ll figure out a second spot at school, if we really need one, but this sounds completely nuts, so it’s better if we don’t blab about it all over town._

_I think that’s everything, or at least the main shit. We’ll try for Amagi-senpai again tomorrow so we’re sure we can get as close to saving her as possible._

Naoki closes his email and grins. If anything, this proves that Kanji’s nowhere near as stupid as he thinks he is; he thought of a bunch of potential problems and addressed them before anyone got hurt.

If Kanji keeps up like this, they’ll breeze through all this TV world crap with no trouble at all.


End file.
